Wed, 01 Oct 2008
Desert Island Music
ed. Griel Marcus, Stranded
Da Capo Press
It turns out that the lack of literate
writing about contemporary music is not a new
thing at all. And I don't mean the coverage of
the art fringe which is usually more pretentious
than actually literate. In the preface to this
book mentions the difficulty of finding a
place for quality writing circa the late 70's.
The idea here is the desert island disc
thing - which one would you take, and why? And
so the list is also a bit of a time capsule
sent to us from the late 70's. The sort of
people that are talked about include the Velvet
Underground, Jackson Browne, the Kinks,
the Ramones, Van Morrison, and the Stones.
There are more!
Who is being talked is interesting of
course but how they're talked about is just as
interesting - the asides and the sketches of
surrounding territory, the descriptions and
personal anecdotes. Sometimes you might say
it's overdone but mostly it reflects a
dialogue between an artist and an intelligent
listener.
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pre Dec 04 reviews are here